


the agent with the dragon (for a soul)

by wearethewitches



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Mulan (1998)
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Bisexuality, Dragons, F/F, F/M, Family, Gen, Immortality, Immortals, Inhumans (Marvel)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-06-16
Updated: 2018-06-23
Packaged: 2019-05-24 07:34:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,358
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14950358
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wearethewitches/pseuds/wearethewitches
Summary: Melinda May was once known by another name and immortality hounds both her and her mother. She wants nothing to do with Inhumans or governments - but somehow, she finds herself embroiled in the futures of both.





	1. Prologue

In her mother's old age, Mulan lays her hands on Hua Li's, weeping. Mushu's tail creeps up her wrist, red dragon tattoo curling in a facsimile of a grip, the spirit quiet for once. Li shakes her head, fingers smooth against Mulan's calloused ones – the difference between a housewife and a seasoned fighter. Hua Zhou's sword is at her waist and Mulan would feel bereft without it's familiar weight.

"Don't mourn me, Mulan. This is the cycle of life. When your grandmother left, you were not this inconsolable."

"You are- you are not Grandmother," Mulan gasps for breath, head dropping down to rest on her mothers covered knees. The healer tuts quietly from their corner, but Mulan can't bring herself to care or even be angry.

Her mother is  _dying._

"My daughter, surrounded by so much death. You have killed many Huns and yet, the death of an old woman from illness is what breaks you."

"I am not broken. I simply do not want you to  _die_ , Mother," Mulan says, before movement catches her eye. Mushu, previously warm and pulsing in sorrow around her hand, stills, slowing and then retreating, slithering slowly up her arm once more. She watches as he disappears up her sleeve and  _feels_  as the spirit-lizard curls up on the flesh of her lower back.

_Suspicious behaviour, considering what I just said._

Li notices the change in Mulan's own behaviour, however, even as she croaks her name, "Mulan?"

Mulan takes her hands back, feeling something deep within her gut. It feels…it feels like  _fire_.  _I've felt that before, when I faced Shan Yu on the top of the Emperors Palace._ It swirls inside and Mushu shifts in discomfort.

"Mushu," she says under her breath, so quiet and so practiced – few to none know Mushu lives on her skin and sometimes  _off_ it, too, speaking to him in such a voice is natural. "Mushu, what- what are you scared of?"

His voice slithers in the back of her head, still so foreign even after all these years.  _'Mulan, you are the Dragon.'_

"You've never really explained what that means," Mulan says, but at the same time, he doesn't need to explain, does he? Her household guardians have always been dragons – Mushu might be small, but he is no ordinary salamander.  _I am the Dragon,_ she thinks, the fire inside her sparking.  _I am the Dragon,_  she thinks again, shutting her eyes.  _I am the Dragon. I am the Dragon. I am the Dragon-_

Each repetition makes the fire grow larger. A roar builds up like a tidal wave, threatening to overcome her. Mushu is shouting at her, but Mulan can't hear him. It's only when she feels him leave her – leave her completely, their connection stretching thinner and thinner as he crawls out of the confines of her dress towards her mother, shaking violently.

"What is this, Mulan?" Li questions, even as the healer shrieks, running out of the room. "Mulan, you are  _glowing_."

Mulan opens her eyes and it's like she's looking at the sun. Everything is  _golden_  and she can smell everything so strongly now – the sickness of her mother has sunk into the bed and even some of the walls, but there's a faint hint of cherry and horse from the breeze through the window.  _Mei is making dumplings next door,_ she recognises, even as she shuts her eyes again, becoming overwhelmed by everything.

The worst part, however, the worst part by  _far_  is feeling her bond with Mushu stretch, stretch, tear and  _snap._

"Oh," her mother murmurs, "I feel… _oh!_ What in the Emperors name are you doing in my head? Mulan, what have you done? What have you  _done?_ "

Mulan opens her eyes, the gold fading to show her everything as it should be – except it's not, because Mushu is no longer curled up in her mothers lap, no. Mushu is on her mother's skin, bright red and curling around her wrist, bonded to her.

"I don't know," Mulan replies.

* * *

It goes like this.

Once upon a time, a girl from China saved her country from invasion and awoke the Dragon inside her. The Dragon was fierce and a fighter. The girl was too – but the girl was the Dragon in all ways but one, so that was a given. When the Dragon awoke, it gave the girl three gifts. The first gift was one the girl never would have asked for: immortality, eternal youth for all time. The second gift was the ability to slip unseen through the world, so none could ever hunt her. The third gift was an Elder.

Hua Mulan and her mother, her Elder, Hua Li, stay alive at the same age they were when the Dragon awoke and they cannot ever die.

Over the centuries, they live together and live apart. They may love each other, but forever means forever and sometimes even just being in the same country is too short a distance. Their names change and their skills adapt. At some point early on in their long lives, Mulan teaches her mother how to wield a sword.

Mulan doesn't fall in love. She doesn't marry or raise a family – her lovers are far and few in between and even then, she takes precautions. The one time she has a child, a beautiful baby boy, he grows and grows…and dies. Mulan swears off having children again after that, even as her mother marries for love over and over, a new partner every new century. Some are young, some are old – Li is frozen at sixty-four, while Mulan is frozen at thirty-four. Lucky for Li, she's too old for children anymore and Mulan took a lot from her in the womb.

 _Lucky,_  Mulan thinks, both very, very relieved her mother doesn't have to through the same pain she had and bitter –  _so_  bitter. She  _aches_  for a child of her own, sometimes, for a family. She wants that again.

Instead, all she receives is death.


	2. Chapter 2

A motorcycle roars outside her home.

Technology is going to be hard to function with when it evolves enough. Lian knows it. The old woman uses a type-writer now, when she contacts her daughter. She upgraded a little too late – one of her co-workers laughs when she talks of her new type-writer at home, asking if she’s into vintage when she mentions it was made in the nineteen hundreds.

 _Yes, yes – I am into vintage,_ Lian thinks, remembering several different styles of dress that are easier to wear than today’s new-fangled _mass produced_ lot. Clothing stores – Lian remembers, not a short time ago, where it was more common to visit a tailors or to be given hand-me-downs that to go to a _shopping centre_. Now, you have to do all your tailoring yourself or pay an extortionate amount for a tailor, which reminds Lian of the _old,_ old days.

Mulan is harder to track down, these days, but Lian knows she still check her post-boxes every so often. With more people, more ways to get places, more ways to get in contact outside of meeting in person, the world is far bigger. She types her letter, writing of her decision to emigrate from China to the Americas. Times are hard – racism is still at an all-time high from white people. But the Americas are still the land of dreams, even in the nineteen fifties and Wei wants a fresh start with his amazing new wife.

 _Who knew we would live to see the twentieth century?_ Lian thinks, with a curl of her lip, recalling how she told Wei she was immortal, feeling Mushu wake from his slumber at her thoughts.

‘ _Twentieth? How long have I been asleep?’_ he asks.

_Two centuries, old friend. You have missed much. I even have an alias, now – the CIA appreciates me more than they should, for a foreigner._

‘ _What is a C.I.A?’_

Her door opens and Wei calls out, “Lian, we have a visitor!”

“Thank-you, Wei,” comes Mulan’s voice and surprised, Lian leaves her letter half-written, standing from her chair. Mushu yawns, her back itching as he runs his scales across her spine, crawling up her back onto her clavicle to get a good view. “Mama?”

“In here, Mulan,” Lian steps out of her tiny study, entering her living room. Mulan, ever-young, looks…strangely young. Lian narrows her eyes. “What did you do?”

“So you see it too?” Mulan questions, looking half-terrified, half-relieved. “I made contact with another group of immortals.”

You could hear a pin drop in the silence that follows.

“…woah,” Wei says, impressed. “And here I thought you were the only ones.”

“They recognised me,” Mulan says, baffled and excited. “They spoke in Ancient Chinese to me – the type _we_ spoke Mama, the _old_ Mandarin – to prove they were all telling the truth. They call themselves the _Yami No Te_ or the Hand, in more recent times – they attempted to kidnap me, actually, but we came to an agreement after we each explained our circumstances. They use an ancient method, from the bones of dragons.”

Lian’s blood runs cold and Mushu roars on her chest, leaving her skin for the first time in over a thousand years. Wei jumps and Mulan catches Mushu by his scrawny tail as he writhes.

“ _Where? Where did they find the bones of dragons?_ ”

“A place called K’un Lun. They were once members of a monastery there. We made a deal.”

“ _What kind of deal?_ ” Mushu asks, going limp in her grip. Lian takes him back from her daughter, dropping him on her shoulder. “ _Mulan, this is important. Did you tell them how you are immortal?_ ”

“No, I’m not an idiot,” she says and Lian breathes a sigh of relief.

“Good,” Lian says, understanding where Mushu is coming from. “We don’t want them thinking you – the _Dragon_ – are a potential route to immortality, or me for that matter.”

“ _Me via you,_ ” Mushu corrects, grumbling. Lian pats his small head, knowing he’s not really woken up properly yet. “ _What deal, Mulan?_ ”

“They gave me some of the substance they use to de-age themselves,” Mulan says, reaching into the satchel she has slung over her shoulder. From it, she takes a bag, inside of which are two full glass vials. “We dissolve it and then drink it. The absorption can take up to a year – a full vial is enough to turn someone my bodily age into a baby. I suppose that would revert you into a woman in her twenties or thirties.”

Lian peers at the vials, imagining aging for thirty years, actually growing and _changing_ again. She _wants_ that, stuck as they both are in this endless existence. “You’ve taken some from one of them.”

“I was going to give that one to you,” Mulan says, looking like the awkward teenage girl that went off to war – not helped by the actual de-aging she has obviously been through. “I was thinking that, well-”

 _I could grow old with Wei,_ Lian thinks, heart pounding. It doesn’t matter if it’s only twenty years – that’s twenty years of not having to explain again and again to nosy busybodies that _yes, I am his wife, no, not his mother_. It’s something that happens every time she marries a young man and just for once, she wants to spare her spouse that.

“What did you give in return?” Wei then asks her daughter.

“My contact details,” Mulan says. “I’m also going to be spending some time in the Japanese branch of their organisation. After, I’m free to go, no strings, but I’ll have a place with them.”

“Hmm…” Lian thinks of her waiting place in the CIA. _They want me. I can fake my way through their process. I can pretend I took over spying on the Chinese from my own mother…yes. Yes._ “Give me that. When you are done with this _Yami No Te_ , you will come to America and live with us, either after having taken it or as my sister. I’ll be setting you up two identities either way – we have to, in this climate of information gathering.”

Mulan makes a face. “I don’t know, Mama.”

“I’ve always wanted a daughter,” Wei jokes, making Mulan smile a little. Lian eyes her. _She’s never reacted that way to my other husbands._

‘ _Well, this one has a sense of humour,’_ Mushu thinks to her.

_Quiet, you._

“Here,” Mulan offers the open vial to her. Lian takes it. “I’ll send you a letter as your supposed sister in seven years.”

“Of course,” Lian says, before stepping forwards and kissing her daughter on the forehead. “Good luck. Don’t get in over your head. We’ve never met other immortals before – we don’t know if these ones are as good as you are.”

“I’m not good,” Mulan murmurs, “I’m neutral.”

“You’re neutral until things begin to matter. Don’t think I don’t know what you did during World War One,” Lian chastises, “or World War Two, for that matter.”

Mulan flushes, before stepping back, offering Wei a nervous wave before leaving as quickly as she arrived. Lian steps towards the closing door, holding it in place as she watches Mulan start up her motorcycle. _That was what the noise was,_ she thinks, shaking her head as Wei joins her, shutting the door when Mulan rides off.

“So, my dear Lian,” Wei says cheerily, “your daughter is quite the shy one.”

“You’ve met before and she wasn’t shy then,” Lian says wryly, recalling the shovel talk Mulan gave Wei that had him throwing up in the garden. Wei now, shudders in remembrance. “Don’t remind you?”

“Don’t remind me,” he agrees, “She loves you very much. Are you going to save that…substance for later, then, or dive right in.”

“Oh, right in,” Lian says, “We’re taking a boat in five months to our new country. I need to be as shiny as possible. Go get me some water in a bowl – I have some bone dust to eat.”

* * *

After her years with _Yami No Te_ in Japan, Mulan checks her prepaid post-box in Shanghai, taking them all to and old house she owns in a small village in the Hunan Province of China, where she gets her affairs in order. Her mother sent all of the two hundred and thirty-five letters in the post-box, with some enclosed anecdotes from Wei and Mulan reads them all with the reasonable expectation that her mother will have had another child in her absence. She’s married again and this time, she’s young. Mulan expects a sibling.

To her own surprise, she doesn’t have one.

In one of her letters, Li writes of them, though. _We visited a few doctors until we found one that while new to ‘Eastern bodies’ wasn’t so racist as the others. Luckily, we have the money to pay him, as well, for he costs a fortune and a half. My body has reverted, as the Substance worked well, but it did not heal me and if I did wish to have children, I would have to revert a few more years._

It makes Mulan guilty, for what if she hadn’t tested it first? Or what if she gave her mother some of her own, full vial? Mulan is ready to make the trip, to go across the pond with dragon bone in her blood – but then she meets a woman on a trip into the market for food.

To be specific: she meets Jiaying for the second time in her long life.

“You’ve not aged a day,” the other woman breathes, staring. Mulan, dumbstruck, can’t believe what’s right in front of her. Jiaying reaches out, fingers brushing her cheek. “Are you Inhuman, too?”

“No,” Mulan says, confused. “I’m- I’m a supernatural being. I embody the spirit of a dragon. I’ve been like this for thousands and thousands of years. What are _you?_ An… _Inhuman?_ ”

“Yes,” Jiaying states, hand dropping. She glances around and Mulan sees the village elders whispering, weapons being casually gathered. “It’s fine,” she announces, “don’t you remember her? She lives eternal, too.”

“Is she of the Blue Ones?” a man asks, voice creaky with age, hand pushing down a stick a young teenage girl has raised in a closed fist.

“No,” Jiaying says, before smiling tightly at Mulan. “No, you aren’t, are you? I think if you were, you’d know of us, at least. I was curious. You would have been, too.”

Mulan wants to argue and say, _no, no I wouldn’t have been._ Research isn’t her style. But she’s never had much patience for not knowing – so maybe yes, she would have.

“Come to my house, we can have tea,” Jiaying invites her and Mulan can’t refuse, wanting to know everything. Her grocery shopping is forgotten and when they get to Jiaying’s house, they sit down with tea.

“What are Inhumans?” Mulan questions and Jiaying threads her unbelievable tale of _aliens from outer space experimenting on humans._

It takes Mulan some time to process. The tea goes cold.

“Take your time,” Jiaying says, offering her dinner. Mulan takes it and pulls at her hair in frustration. Her thoughts are going round in circles and she eats her rice and stir-fry mechanically. Jiaying doesn’t seem to mind much – though she watches her closely and Mulan notices how she puts all her papers away, tidying and hiding things. A sculpture on her mantelpiece is set inside a box; a child’s painting is folded and tucked into a book; letters in a foreign alphabet – Italian, Mulan thinks – are neatly slid into a satchel.

It’s strange behaviour, to hide ones life if you’re a normal person. Mulan thinks, perhaps, that it’s just habit for immortals. Evidence to the contrary, that she _isn’t_ normal, is scattered everywhere through Jiaying’s home.

“You’ve not been like this long,” Mulan supposes. “How old are you?”

“I’m approaching my second century,” Jiaying says, which is older than Mulan thought.

“You’ll learn not to do this eventually,” Mulan says, finishing her rice, using her chopsticks to motion around. “Keepsakes are good, but if you need to hide them, they aren’t things that will keep you safe. Put them in boxes in your attic and pretend they were your mother’s things, your grandmothers – but not yours. Attachment hurts and we can’t help it, but there will come a time where it will just…ache.”

“I’m already feeling that ache,” Jiaying says and Mulan shakes her head.

“No. You aren’t. You won’t feel that until you see a civilisation get created and then die, with you around to see it. Who do you think I am?”

“I don’t know,” Jiaying says, eating a piece of chicken. “Lihwa?”

“No,” Mulan says, putting down her bowl. “Hua Mulan. I saved China from the Hun Invasian, from Shan Yu.”

“…Mulan? You’re _Mulan,_ the legendary general?” Jiaying questions, eyes wide. “You’re in poetry and- and _plays._ You…you are _very_ old.”

“There’s this saying in the Western world: never ask a lady her age,” Mulan jokes, shrugging. “I am. My mother is older – she’s alive with me, as my Elder. It was a gift I’m not sure my mother ever forgave Mushu for.”

“Who is Mushu?” Jiaying questions.

“Mushu…” Mulan trails off, not wanting to reveal too much, too soon. Jiaying might have told her she’s Inhuman – that being _Inhuman_ means being descended from people experimented on by aliens, that being _Inhuman_ means having powers – but that doesn’t mean Mulan has to tell her everything. She didn’t tell Yami No Te everything, either. She sliced the Branch Leader’s nose off with her sword when he got too impertinent. _That’s what you get for trying to get answers out of an immortal._

“Mushu isn’t important,” she says eventually. “He’s not alive, anyway.”

It’s a very true statement, seeing as Mushu is technically a household spirit.

“Oh,” Jiaying says, before finishing her dinner, picking up Mulan’s discarded bowl and disappearing into the kitchen. “Do you go by Mulan these days?”

“No, I’ve not come up with a new name, yet,” Mulan says. “My mother will be choosing my next one.”

“Do you mind me calling you Mulan?” Jiaying asks and Mulan can see her put the kettle on from the living room if she leans forwards. “I’ve not had reason to change my name, yet.”

“Call me anything you want,” Mulan offers, interested to see what she’ll come up with. Jiaying is silent for a time, only speaking when she comes back through with a fresh teapot.

As she’s pouring them both cups of tea, on her knees at the table, Mulan shifting her legs as pins and needles make her wince, Jiaying speaks. “Can I call you Mel?”

“Mel?” Mulan questions.

“I have a friend – an admirer,” Jiaying corrects. “His mother was called Melinda. I found myself rather taken with it. I like both sexes.”

Mulan raises an eyebrow at this piece of transparency. “You’d be the first to admit that to me in a long time. Not many are so open with their words. I’m the same. After so long, you see the benefit of both.”

“I agree,” Jiaying offers her tea and Mulan takes it, lip twitching as she tastes it. “I still remember your favourite.”

“You do,” Mulan confirms. “Being honest, I thought you were more of a fan of females, singularly, the last time we knew each other.”

“Is that because we slept together?”

Mulan smiles. “Maybe,” she says, looking Jiaying up and down, eyes drifting over certain areas with purpose. “Care to repeat the experience?”

“Some other time,” Jiaying shakes her head. “I’m still wrapping my head around you…you’re immortal. You’re like me, a little, at least.”

“I know others,” Mulan offers, tentative. “They do it deliberately, unlike us. Maybe I should warn you, actually.”

Jiaying’s eyes darken. “Who?”

“They run an organisation,” Mulan describes, telling Jiaying of her time with the Hand. The group was of considerable power – but they don’t know that their own Founders are immortal.

The majority of her time with Murakami’s sect, actually, was spent relearning skills she’d lost. Fighting, infiltrating, living in shadow – Mulan can describe it by comparing it to ninjas and assassins. Except, this is the modern day and in the modern day, there are guns too, as well as swords, knives and plain fists. Mulan knows how to create bombs, now, how to deactivate and get past electronic defences.

 _Technology is still improving, though,_ she thinks. _My skills will become redundant if I don’t train them regularly._ Mulan supposes that’s why her place will still be open in the Japanese branch, even though there is apparently a Chinese branch too, which would probably be more appropriate. _Yami No Te want to get on my good side, though. They were letting me get a good look at their defences – not their side businesses._

Talking to Jiaying about them, bringing up her thoughts and worries, is a little too natural. Too easy. Jiaying is a good listener, though and she makes good points. Mulan thinks back to when she and her mother lived here in this very village, so many years ago. Jiaying had shown her around – perhaps been keeping an eye on her, in retrospect, to see how long she’d be staying – and they’d connected.

They share a different sort of connection now.

Mulan and Li had lived in the village for fifteen years together, before Li left, pretending she wanted to die from a mystery illness while on holiday abroad. Mulan left after another year and a half, the grief supposedly too strong for her when in actual fact, the grocer had made a comment on her youthful façade, having expected her to gain some wrinkles.

Jiaying had been decent about her leaving, despite how it meant losing a lover. Mulan had missed her too, actually – Jiaying had been human connection she’d been missing out on for the past few decades. Truly, it was bold of them both for having their romantic entanglement so openly, but the village was – _is_ – small and they looked up to Jiaying. A sixteen-year affair didn’t damage her reputation at all and…and in reality, sixteen years is a long time, isn’t it?

Mulan looks away from Jiaying in shame, wondering how hurt Jiaying had really been, when she left. _She’s immortal too,_ Mulan thinks. _Maybe she thought we had longer than that, that we could stay together and we could- we could love each other. Did I love her?_ She looks at Jiaying again, trying to remember what being in love feels like.

 _…Luo Shang. What did it feel like to love him?_ Mulan compares it to what she feels for Jiaying, but there is no comparison. She barely remembers Shang, what his love meant to her. Names, places – her memory is impeccable because of the Dragon. But feelings, feelings are things she forgets, unless she analyses them and writes them down. _If I kept journals, I would know the truth of what I felt, I could **compare**._

Jiaying sends a thrill through her heart, makes it beat faster. There’s the familiarity, too, being able to sit down and talk for hours to her. Using Jiaying as a sounding board is just…it’s _just-_ Mulan doesn’t even have the words. Shang wasn’t her sounding board – they argued, Mulan remembers. They discussed strategies sometimes and told each other what to do, because they trusted each other and knew what they were doing would work. Their trust went so very, very deep in a way only war could create and they knew what they were doing. Mulan’s ideas were a little off-book, but sometimes off-book was what you needed – their infiltration of the Emperors Palace showed that.

If Mulan loves Jiaying, it’s not the way she loved Shang. Mulan doesn’t think she loves Jiaying, though, not yet.

“Are you going to stay, Mel?” Jiaying questions. Mulan doesn’t look up for a second, then remembers this is her new nickname. She looks up, seeing Jiaying watching her. “Are you?”

“…I think I will,” she says, “on one condition.”

Jiaying tilts her head, “What condition?”


End file.
